


the one in which Victor meets Annabelle (and she’s dating his son)

by Karria



Series: LABN Coffee Shop AU [2]
Category: LA by Night, Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Gen, but i had fun writing it so honestly who cares, its ooc, you know its a coffee shop au, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 05:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20791307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karria/pseuds/Karria
Summary: Victor is back from a business trip.





	the one in which Victor meets Annabelle (and she’s dating his son)

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to cordsycords for allowing me to use their headcanons in this series!

**The stage is set.**

The light turns on with a gentle click when Victor returns home in the middle of the night, tired, but satisfied. The meeting with the investors has gone well; he was pretty sure he actually convinced them this time. There were very nice prospects for him in the future. Maybe even a franchise, one day.

He shakes off the thought. One or two more shops would be nice, but he didn’t want to go into a business so big again. One of his greatest regrets was the time he lost because of how caught up he was in his career and he was not about to fall for it again.

He makes his way to the living room when he sees the bedroom door open.

“You’re home.” Nelli is still up. It wasn’t that surprising; she was always working on some project or other, preparing her fashion classes or helping him take care of the shop. Victor will always remember how she helped him set it all up; they both stayed up working until they basically collapsed. But the effects of her work were always outstanding, and she always knew when to take a break.

“You’re still up,” he grins widely. “I missed you.”

“Don’t be dramatic, it was only three days,” she walks over, kissing him on the cheek. “I missed you too.”

She makes her way to the couch and puts on a movie, while he puts away his suitcase and jacket. He usually dresses in suits, but the way back was long and tiresome, so he wore a sweater vest instead. Nelli, as always, scoffs when she sees him in it.

“How was your meeting?”

“It went fine, it went great! You know, I think I actually have them this time. “ Victor makes his way to the couch as well after grabbing a sandwich and some juice.

“Darling, do you really want to open another one?”

Victor stops for a second. “Why do you ask?”

“Your precious coffee maker broke again,” Nelli explains with a somewhat tired expression “And we really can’t expect Jasper to works miracles with it anymore. We need a new one.”

Victor raises his hands in defeat. He knew this was coming for a while now, but he was stupidly sentimental of that thing.

“Fine, fine. I’ll get rid of it, unless…”

She cocks her head. “Absolutely not.”

“We could set it up right there in the kitchen!”

“That thing is hideous!”

Victor gasps in pretended offense. “How dare you, that thing is like family to me!”

“It’s me or the coffee machine,” Nelli threatens, with a spark of mischief in her eyes. Victor finally surrenders, and their conversation quiets down for a moment, before Nelli picks it up again.

“I hired a new bartender for the shop.”

Victor raises his eyebrows. Of course, they talked about it and he gave her a free pass to hire someone even when he was away, but it was still a little bit surprising.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Her name is Anabelle. I’ll introduce you tomorrow.” Nelli says and reaches for the remote control. Victor pauses for a second. Annabelle, Anabelle… he feels like he heard that name recently. When nothing comes to his mind, he shrugs and joins Nelli in watching a movie.

Coming home was comforting.

Morning comes sooner than he would’ve liked. Nelli has classes that day, and she needs to make sure Victor is caught up with everything in the shop before she leaves. When they get there Jasper is already preparing for the opening and they exchange a nod.

“Is Annabelle in yet?”

Jasper shakes his head. “She should be here in a few minutes. There’s traffic, apparently.”

They spend some time chattering (with Jasper mostly replying every now and again with one or two words) until Annabelle rushes into the shop. She’s wearing a red jacket, and is holding a bag in her hand, probably with her work uniform in it.

“Hi! Am I late? Sorry I’m late!” She stops mid-step when she spots Victor and her eyes grow wide.

“Darling, let me introduce you to the second owner of the shop! Victor, this is Annabelle.”

Annabelle steps up with a nervous smile and Victor wonders about it again. When had he heard that name recently? He was 100% certain that he did but he couldn’t exactly recall…

“Hello, Mr. Temple, uh, pleasure working with you? I guess?”

OH.

“Aren’t you dating my son?”

Now, Victor couldn’t have possibly known that it was this particular girl named Annabelle who was dating Mark, but he took a wild guess and somehow got it right. He sees the look on her face change from nervousness to shock, as she stumbles over her words. Of course, the other two people in the room immediately start paying extreme attention to this conversation. Nelli is also extremely surprised; and Jasper turns around with the coffee bags he was putting in the drawers still in his hands.

Everyone’s attention is on Annabelle and Annabelle alone.

“I am, but I didn’t know it was your shop, I swear…” she starts at the same time Nelli says “Excuse me, what?”

“I SWEAR I didn’t know,” repeats Annabelle. Jasper looks more amused than he did in the entire 3 years Victor has known him. He leans over the counter almost as if to catch every single word of this conversation.

“It’s ok; I believe that you didn’t know. So how long have you been dating my son?”

Annabelle groans. “Oh my god. This is so awkward. I can’t believe you are my boss and we are actually having this conversation right now. I can’t believe Mark never told me this is your shop.”

“I don’t think he knows,” Victor interjects. “He’s never been here. He just knows I have a shop.”

“Oh.” That’s all Annabelle manages to say. An awkward silence falls for a couple of seconds, before Jasper speaks up “I think we’re out of Ethiopian Harrar.”

“I’ll go get it,” Nelli quickly responds. “There might be a more few bags in the basement. Annabelle, we open really soon, you should go change.”

Annabelle nods. “Mr. Temple… I’m really sorry.”

Victor shrugs. “You couldn’t have known. Besides, maybe now Mark actually will come and check out the shop. Also, everyone here calls me Victor.”

“Yeah, ok.”

“Annabelle, uniform!” Nelli reprimands her from the door leading to the basement and she rolls her eyes. “Ugh, ok Mom!”

Victor breathes out and as the conversation between Nelli and Jasper (“What did she just call me?” “She called you mum.”) and Nelli’s subsequent leave for the basement become just a background noise he loses himself in thought. He wonders if he can really keep Annabelle around, and if it won’t cause Mark to distrust him even more. Maybe Annabelle would explain to him that none of this happened on purpose.

“What do you think about her?” He asks Jasper and he shrugs.

“She’s… alright.”

Well, in Jasper’s scale of judging people this was basically as high of a praise as it could be. He seemed to hate mostly everyone, except for maybe X. Victor wasn’t sure what Jasper thought of him; but their working relationship was decent. He was a good worker; always on time, always doing what was expected of him. The customers got pretty used to him as well.

“Should we keep her?”

“She’s learning quickly.”

“I guess I’m going to have a talk with Mark now.”

“Yeah. Mark. Your son. That apparently exist.”

“Hey man, not my fault that we don’t usually have nice conversations about our families!”

Jasper let’s out something akin to a chuckle and goes back to work. Just as Annabelle comes back in her uniform, they all suddenly hear a sound of something breaking, coming from the basement.

Alarmed, Victor calls out to her.

“Nelli? Something wrong? Did Ramona lose one of her rats again?” He told her not to bring her pets to the shop, but she wasn’t about to listen to him. _They like the cookies, Victor. They are good pets, they won’t wander around._

The doors to the basement swing open and Nelli appears. Victor barely manages to open his mouth to ask what happened, before she speaks.

“The basement’s haunted.”

Victor blinks. “What?”

“The. Basement. Is. Haunted. Get me a gun.”

**And the curtain falls.**


End file.
